True or False: People are Basically Good?
- Wednesday, October 28, 2009, 6:35
- Battleground Iowa
- 1,580 views
- 11 comments
By Emily Geiger
One of my pet peeves is when I hear people say that “people are basically good.”
People are not basically good. We are all basically bad, and we have to work really hard to be good.
Ask anyone in law enforcement. Ask any judge. Ask any child abuse investigator. There is a lot of evil in this world.
Need an example of this? There are examples all over the place, but there was an astounding example of it in the news in the last few days.
Vicious Homecoming Dance Gang Rape May Have Been Videotaped, Watched by Dozens
Two suspects were in custody late Monday, but police said as many as five other men attacked the girl over a two-hour period Friday night outside Richmond High School, in Richmond, Calif.
“She was raped, beaten, robbed and dehumanized by several suspects who were obviously OK enough with it to behave that way in each other’s presence,” Richmond Police Lt. Mark Gagan said. “What makes it even more disturbing is the presence of others. People came by, saw what was happening and failed to report it.”
This shocks the conscious… if you have one.
Yes, people are NOT basically good. That’s why the nightly news is 95% bad news and only about 5% good news.
The good news of extraordinary people helping others makes the news because it is so rare. Remember that construction worker pulling that woman from the river in Des Moines? Of course you remember, because it was so shocking that someone (other than a first responder) would go to such extraordinary measures to facilitate such a dangerous and daring rescue.
So why do so many people buy into the lie that “people are basically good?”
Simple, because we are being inundated with this atheistic, humanistic concept that the world revolves around people, to the exclusion of God and anything else.
Think about it. If you really believe that people are basically good, then why would you have any need for a Savior?
Next time someone tries to feed you the lie that people are basically good, ask yourself if you really believe that to be true. Ask yourself if the evidence you see every day really supports that.
Do you do good because that’s always the first thing that comes to your mind, or do you struggle with selfishness and temptation?
And more importantly, ask yourself what the implications of the belief really are. If people basically good, why is there evil in the world?
Are we just fine on our own, or could we use a Savior?
About the Author
Battleground Iowa has written 184 stories on this site.
Emily Geiger writes from a conservative perspective on everything from politics to religion to pop culture. Like the original Emily of Revolutionary War era, this Emily is delivering important messages crucial to winning the raging war of the time, but today, this is a culture war rather than a traditional one. And, like the original Emily, sometimes it takes a woman to do (or say) that which lesser men lack the courage and tenacity to do.
11 Comments on “True or False: People are Basically Good?”
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Well said Miss Geiger.
Ever since the Garden we poor dead souls buy the lie that ‘we can be as gods, determining good and evil’ for ourselves.
The Almighty Judge, Lawgiver, and King of the universe reserves to Himself the right to ‘determine good and evil’. Those who claim otherwise, are treasonous rebels, ‘condemned already.’ But, the LORD has mercy on whom He will have mercy.
Yep, to have eternal life instead of eternal death we need His pardon. And only ‘one Way’ to get it: from God the Father, through His Son the Redeemer, and applied by His Spirit to make us alive. “Our Father, Who art in heaven…Forgive us our trespasses…”
Dave Hanson
It would probably be safe to assume in the general case that any act, altruism or not, implies some sort of personal benefit. Those acts we categorize as “altruistic” are simply those where the reward entails the servicing of a belief — primarily as proof to actors themselves that they are “good people” for living up to their own specific standards.
This seems to be the case when the act is unpleasant or even suicidal — the perceived pleasure derived from the service of the particular belief outweighs the perceived cost — regardless of the true outcome. Even if it so happens that the charity has unintended consequences, it is often the perceived benefit of having followed the applicable rules that leads people to the conclusion that they “would not have acted differently” in spite of knowing the actual cost in hindsight.
How else can one explain the fundamental contradiction of people like Bill Gates and Andrew Carnegie playing cutthroat business games to destroy their opponents, only to end up spending their time giving away their vast fortunes? What matters to people on a visceral level is control–to say their own lives have meaning and direction–the exercising of their belief–and this usually matters more than other people. This is why recipients of charity or welfare often feel they are being manipulated–even if that is not the direct intent, the evident flow of power makes it feel that way–and ultimately they know that they are *not* the ones in control. The purest altruism expects no gratitude; in fact realistically it should probably expect disdain in return and accept as much, despite the usefulness of gratitude as a feedback mechanism for encouraging helpfulness to others.
The generally common observation is that it is only with relative rarity that adults revise their fundamental behavioral rules in response to contrary outcomes. Children and juveniles, being more conceptually flexible, find it easier to learn new tricks and are somewhat less likely to have such statically rigid social responses. At some point most of us get locked in to a particular way of thinking.
So maybe the more interesting question is, what makes people define “goodness” and can it be done rationally and systematically on all sides? For the most part, what we define as “good” behavior is so culturally and personally subjective that we don’t even bother to enumerate the ends we intend to achieve in any meaningful, apolitical way.
You are 100% correct! We do need a Savior!
“All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.”
— Blaise Pascal
“So maybe the more interesting question is, what makes people define “goodness” and can it be done rationally and systematically on all sides? For the most part, what we define as “good” behavior is so culturally and personally subjective that we don’t even bother to enumerate the ends we intend to achieve in any meaningful, apolitical way.”
That statement is just so fundamentally false. We have been shown what true Goodness and Rightousness is. It has been given to us in Spirit and in the flesh. The guide to being good, the manual you might say, has been written down unchanged for nearly 2000 years.
To say that the term good is subjective is really to say that even though we do evil things and reject our lord, we still want feel good about it. So to that end, we want to redefine what good really is.
Very true Emily, though I would add a caveat. It is only by the grace of God (common grace, not saving grace) that we can do any good at all.
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience – among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved… For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is a gift of God, not a result of good works, so that no one can boast,” (Ephesians 2:1-5, 8-9, ESV, emphasis mine).
I’ll follow that with Romans 1:32 Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
We all deserve a fate worse than death when put before the standard that God holds us to. It is only by the grace of God that anyone can be saved. So this question of are we good or not does not single out any person or group of persons. It is the universal condition of everybody without exception.
I would follow that with “the righteous shall live by faith”. The righteous, the good shall live by faith in the lord. For John also wrote, “…for whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life”
We are, without faith in Him, deserving of death. Goodness and Justice reside in the Lord, all else falls short.
Amen Emily !